


Book One: Summer

by OneFail_AtATime



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AtLA, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 17:55:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21040340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneFail_AtATime/pseuds/OneFail_AtATime
Summary: What if there was more than one world that Aang needed to save?





	Book One: Summer

_When everything you had called your own is taken from you, when everyone you’ve ever loved has been killed, and when your very being is suffocated, the intended result is for your soul to be crushed and for you to become a shell of the person that you once were._

_Unfortunately for the armies that oppressed my people, this had the opposite effect on me. Instead of following along and working to obey their every whim like a mindless puppet, I grew up with a longing to break away in order to bring an end to their control over my people. It was what I sought to remember as I stood on the edge of coastline and stared out at the horizon. I recalled everything that my grandfather had told me when I had asked about when the first armies had arrived generations ago. He told me they had been searching for someone, a powerful leader who was a threat to their armies. And when their searches failed, they had turned to the precious metals in our mountains, forced labor upon us, and became a constant dark cloud over our people._

_I vowed to bring an end to it._

_I had been raised to fight. It was in my nature to work against them and I knew that I would continue to do so until the very breath left my body. My mother, who often spoke with our spirit ancestors, said that this was my destiny path, an outcome for my life that had been determined by Fate. But I knew from experience that Fate would leave a number of choices before me, filling my path with difficult trials that could not be avoided._

_The night that I stood out on the coastline, the cool evening wind ruffled my hair and sent chills through my body. For years the moon and stars had been sending us messages and now it was time to listen. I knew that I couldn’t follow in my family’s footsteps and see any more of my loved ones killed. I knew that I would continue to fight using the skills gained from forbidden training. But the one thing that I hadn’t planned for was that I would be doing all of it alone. Though it didn’t surprise me when the Fire Armies continued to attack my family. We had opposed them for so long. We were rebels living in their forced uniformity of a world. Bending the elements was absolutely forbidden and yet my parents had raised me to embrace my abilities from birth. When they were discovered training the other youth on our mainland, they were taken away, beaten, and their ragged, almost lifeless bodies were returned to use as a warning. They wanted me to be scared, to submit to their demands._

_But all I felt was rage._

_That rage grew as the Fire Armies continued to kill my people in order to set an example. In return, my people grew more fearful of using their own abilities. While they would still meet in secret so that we would be able to perform our rituals and commune with our ancestors, many stopped attending the lessons that my parents had fought so hard to carry out in secret. Everyone had become skittish, even when there was nothing that they could have been responsible for. All because the tyrants were maiming and killing individuals for merely **existing**. A close friend and I had seen enough. We began to search for answers to the questions that our spirits couldn’t answer: why did the armies fear our people so and what was it about the powerful leader they had originally been searching for?_

_While my friend did not approve of what I had to say about my own destiny path, she was incredibly loyal in her drive to help me._

_It was that incredible loyalty that got her killed._

_All because my plan had failed._

. . . . . . . . .

Everything was burning.

The smoke from the fuming trees was also tainted with the smell of death. Men and women were screaming. Children were crying out for their parents. The injured were rushing to the aid of the wounded and sending prayers that they would make it in time to save even just one soul. But nothing was certain. Not in a time of terror. Not in a time when innocent people were killed for no reason other than the suspicion of those who claimed to be saviors.

Except saviors didn’t destroy everything in their path.

They didn’t destroy lives for the sake of destruction.

The soldiers had come raiding through earlier that evening, tearing down anything in the path and hurting anyone who stood in their way. The warriors who opposed them called for their families to return to their homes to take cover, assuring them that the soldiers would do their damage and be on their way. But no one could have known that they were on a hunt. They couldn’t have known that the men had been given orders from their commander to bring one individual in for questioning and to kill said individual if there was any resistance.

The girl in question had attempted to run, as all fearful victims would, and was then brought to the square to be made an example for any other person who would try to run from the soldiers in the future. At the edge of the crowd stood another young woman, the captive’s best friend, who was fighting to control her emotions as her loved ones held her back, trapping her in their strength so that she would not be made to join her friend on the pyre. When the soldiers all took aim upon the captured young woman, everyone turned to look away.

Everyone except the friend who continued to struggle against the strength that bound her, that kept her from doing everything in her power to rescue her friend. Those around her may not have been able to stomach the sight of what was to be done with the sentenced captive but the struggling young woman continued to beat against the arms that held her, screaming as tears stained her cheeks and her voice grew hoarse. In the end, listening to the cries of the two young women were all that they had managed to do. For the young woman who watched her friend burn before her very eyes, the pain of failing to protect yet another one of her people was nothing compared to the searing pain she felt at losing her friend. In that moment, as her friend’s cries ceased but the pyre continued to burn, the struggling young woman made a vow before the spirits. She would fight with every ounce of strength that they gave her. She would listen to the spirits and do their bidding, do anything as long as it meant that the armies who brought death and destruction would come to their own fiery end.

And this time, her plan wouldn’t fail.

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I had actually started this fic idea over five years ago only to cycle back to it while going through some serious writer's block on my other WIPs. With the Netflix series starting to come together, though nothing new has been announced in ages, I still thought it would be time to finally post this. 
> 
> Better late than never.


End file.
